Overwatch’s 1v1 Mode to Be Expanded, Blizzard Hoping to Reintroduce Support Heroes

November 26, 2016
Written by Mack Ashworth

Those of you who love the intense intimacy of Overwatch‘s 1v1 mode will be happy to hear that Blizzard are looking to expand the game type. According to Jeff Kaplan, the game’s director, the current state of 1v1 is “just the first expression of what [Blizzard wants] to try in the 1v1 space.” He took to the Battle.net forums to reveal more of what’s planned:

We have lots of ideas for other 1v1 modes. Mystery Duel was just the first expression of what we want to try in the 1v1 space.

Also, eventually in Custom Game you’ll be able to do a 1v1 with your friends where you can select the hero pool (meaning the available pool of random heroes that Mystery Duel chooses from). This is a feature we’re actively working on right now.

Kaplan also responded to fan queries regarding the removal of certain characters. Heroes that caused issues when moved into the 1v1 format had been made unavailable:

We removed Lucio because the battles (if played a certain way) would always end in a draw. Also, when we buffed Mercy, she ran into a similar situation.

We have some other ideas to solve these problems that we’re going to try in future iterations. Hopefully, if those changes are successful, we can bring Lucio back.

Also, we just discovered a bug that causes Ana to almost never show up in a 1v1 match (well, she has shown up twice since we patched). That bug will be fixed soon so you’ll be seeing more of Ana.

What do you make of these changes? Are you hoping that Lucio returns to dominate in 1v1?